The Vikings didn't wait nearly as long Saturday night to end the drama.
Lawrence went on a 22-4 run in the first half, weathered a Ripon rally in the second half, and went on to a 79-64 Midwest Conference victory.
It was the first loss of the season for Ripon (9-1, 3-1 MWC), which came into the game ranked 21st in the D3hoops.com poll, and the win improved Lawrence's record to 8-1 (2-0 MWC).
"I think anytime you beat the 21st-ranked team on their home floor, it's a big game," Lawrence head coach John Tharp said. "The one thing I'm most pleased about is the intensity we played with. If we can continue with that intensity, only good things can happen."
Lawrence hadn't won at Ripon since Dec. 2, 2000, when Adam LaVoy's late 3-pointer lifted the Vikings to a 78-77 victory. It looked like the Vikings would be in for a rough night on Saturday when Ripon jumped out to a 7-2 lead with 16:55 left in the first half.
The Vikings then busted out, hitting eight of their next 11 shots from the floor to grab a 24-11 advantage. Sophomore forward Brendan Falls and junior forward Chris MacGillis had five points apiece to spark the run, in which seven different Lawrence players scored.
"The thing we feel most pleased about is we have a lot of guys we can count on," Tharp said. "We have a lot of guys who can hit baskets for us. That is the strength of our team."
Lawrence led by as many as 18 points in the first half before Ripon trimmed the lead to 39-26 at the half, thanks to Adam Crawford's 3-pointer with 40 seconds left in the opening 20 minutes.
Ripon came out hot to start the second half. The Red Hawks nearly came all the way back, cutting the lead twice to one, both times on baskets by Scott Landisch. It was his jumper at 11:37 that got Ripon to within 49-48, but sophomore guard Jason Holinbeck answered on the other end for Lawrence. His three-point play with 11:13 left put Lawrence up 52-48, and the Vikings would never look back.
"The tradition and history that Ripon has is they make big runs at you. What we talked about before the game started was limiting the length of those runs," Tharp said.
"We didn't panic. The thing that was most significant was that our half-court defense buckled down again. We got aggressive offensively and took the ball to the basket. When you do that, 90 percent of the time, good things happen."
Lawrence scored the game's next eight points to go up 60-48 with 7:31 left, and the Vikings never led by less than nine points the rest of the way.
Falls led three Lawrence players in double figures with 20 points. Freshman forward Chris Braier added 13 points and a game-high eight rebounds, and freshman forward Kyle MacGillis added 11 points.
Joe Early led Ripon with 14 points, Landisch added 13, and Nick Butrym had 10 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Ripon lost starting point guard Tom Becker midway through the first half with a wrist injury, and he did not return. Landisch injured his neck late in the game and had to be taken from the floor on a stretcher.